I can’t believe my first year of college is already coming to an end. This past year has been full of new, fun, exciting, stressful, and difficult experiences. I had to learn how to balance school, work, friends, family and many more. I have learned a lot through both my academic and nonacademic achievements. I have accomplished various assignments from essays to presentations and I have been working a lot. All things considered, there are three underlying themes that summarize my first year experience at the University of Washington Bothell: time management is the key to success, socializing is important, and it’s all about the experience and what you learn.

              Time management was a major problem during the first part of my year. During the month of September not only did I start college, I also started a new job. At first, it was really difficult to adjust to these major changes all at once and I wasn’t able to successfully balance work and school. I was sacrificing way too many hours of sleep in order to accomplish my assignments since I was working at least twenty-five hours per week. I especially remember an assignment I had to accomplish for my introduction to law class. Introduction to law was a great class that I really enjoyed but I kept putting my final project aside until the day before it was due. For this assignment I had to visit a superior court, sit through a case, and then write a paper about my experience compared to what we learned in class lectures. Sure, I knew what I was writing about because I actively listened to the lectures, but my poor time management skills made it difficult to accomplish the assignment. I had to visit the court and write my paper all on the same day and I didn’t get any sleep. That night I realized that I wouldn’t be in that situation if only I had started working on the assignment much earlier. As a result, I decided to keep a very accurate daily planner in order to manage my time wisely, accomplish all my assignments on time, and actually get some sleep. Evidently time management is the key to success in college because there are many activities and responsibilities going on at once that it is important to keep track of everything.

              Equally important, college surprisingly requires a lot of group work. During fall quarter I had at least one group project in every one of my classes, which only goes to show the importance of networking and socializing. It is important to talk and build connections with others in order to be successful in any course. Whether it’s to ask for help on an assignment you don’t understand or to simply build new friendships, it is important to communicate with others. During fall quarter I took introduction to psychology and a major part of my grade was a final project that required me to work in a group and conduct a case study based on what we learned throughout the quarter. My group and I conducted a survey, then interpreted the results of our survey as a group, and then finally presented our findings to the rest of the class in a PowerPoint presentation. In order to accomplish this project successfully, my group and I had to communicate a lot in order to get everyone’s input and understanding. Equally important, through this group project and many others I accomplished this year I was able to meet new people and make new friends. Evidently it is important to be social and communicate with others not only to be successful but also to build relationships with others.

            My high school teachers would tell me that grades were not the most important thing about an education, but that learning is what actually matters. During high school I was way too concerned about the grades I received and not so much about the information I actually learned. I remember I would study for a test 30 minutes before I actually had to take the test and somehow managed to maintain good grades. I would only remember the information I studied in those 30 minutes for the next couple of hours, but I wouldn’t actually learn the material. But soon enough I realized that I couldn’t do this in college. In college it is actually important to learn. I have to practice and study a lot in order to perform successfully on exams and in the class. I have to know the material I learn through lectures in order to participate in class discussions and earn a very important participation grade. Sure, grades are important but the experience and what you learn is what truly matters. A perfect example of this theme is my seminar style BCORE class, “Common Objects, Consuming Things”. In this class, we had to read the assigned reading and then come back the next class ready to discuss the content of the reading. In order to organize our thoughts and get ready to discuss we had to write short reading responses. If we didn’t take the time to critically analyze the reading and actually learn its content, then we wouldn’t be ready to participate in the discussion for the next class. This is a perfect example of how it is really important to actually study new material in order to understand it and actually learn.

            All in all, the lessons I learned through my first year of college will definitely have a positive impact on my future, both academic and professional. First of all, my time management skills have drastically improved which have made it easier to balance work and school. This is important to my academic success because I am now able to accomplish my school work on time while working and doing other activities. Equally important, the ability to communicate and build connections with others is important for any career that I decide to pursue in the future. I plan to major in business and go into marketing. Communicating and working with others is especially important in marketing because I need to be able to work with others on projects and understand how to communicate with the consumer population in order to successfully accomplish marketing campaigns. Also, the idea that what you learn is what truly matters will have a major impact on my academic success because my knowledge will truly expand if I focus on actually learning rather than simply obtaining an exceptional grade. This will also benefit my professional future because knowledge and ability is what makes a person competent and not what grade they receive.